Chapter VII: Part TWO (4)

The Captain thrust him towards the ladder. "Stand by with fenders the port side. Get the hand-pumps going. I'll run her alongside."

"Gawd 'elp us!" muttered the Gunner, and as he spoke the burning ship yawed suddenly and came bearing down on them.

From first to last it was less than five minutes' work. With paint blistered and scorched clothing, rails and davits bent, with cold fear in their hearts and a sense of duty that mastered all, that prodigy of seamanship was accomplished. Twenty-four jabbering Chinese firemen and a dazed Scotch mate flopped down pell-mell on to the Destroyer's upper deck, and received the gift of life at the hands of a young man in a singed duffle coat, who said nothing, whose breath came and went rather fast through dilated nostrils.

"Twenty-five," reported the First Lieutenant when he had mustered the rescued and the Destroyer was racing landward, "and twenty-four of 'em Chinks. You risked your ship for a couple of dozen yellow-bellies!"

"Maybe I did," replied his Captain. Dawn was paling the Eastern sky, and he loosened the duffle coat about his throat. "Maybe I did. I ain't the Hohangho."

4

A FORTY-FOOT SETTING

The tramp that had done the damage lay rolling lazily in the long, smooth swell, blowing off steam. Her escort of two Destroyers--or more properly a Destroyer and a half--was some distance away, exchanging a highly-seasoned and technical dialogue through megaphones. In the course of an unpremeditated zigzag a quarter of an hour earlier the tramp had rammed one of her escort and cut her in two.

The combination of misunderstandings which culminated in this mishap was at the moment in process of review on the bridge of the tramp. Her master, who was a Portuguese, and the mate, who hailed from Pernambuco, in the apportioning of blame were for once in agreement; the Chinese Quartermaster called, weeping, upon his ancestors' gods to witness they lied. Each spake his own tongue, and the babel of their strife mingled with the thin hiss of escaping steam, to be engulfed by the vast blue loneliness of the sky.

The Captain of the rammed Destroyer (his age was twenty-five and his vocabulary one Methuselah need not have been ashamed of) transferred his ship's company to the other escort and made a cursory survey of the damage.

The bulkhead forward of the gaping cavity was holding--precariously, it is true, but still holding. Therefore the fore part of the crippled Destroyer continued to float; the after portion, since the sea was smooth and the swell slight, although sagged below the surface, continued attached to the remainder by a few twisted longitudinals of steel and some mangled plates. The unhurt Destroyer having embarked the shipwrecked crew, ranged alongside her damaged sister, and proclaimed her intention of passing a towing hawser.

The Captain of the cripple filled and lit a pipe while he considered the problem from the vantage of the midship funnel of his command, which lolled drunkenly in a horizontal posture athwart the upper deck.

"Not yet," he shouted, and turned to the Gunner, who stood knee-deep in water where once a torpedo-tube had been. "It's that cursed depth-charge I'm worrying about. It's still in the chute at the stern, and set to explode at a depth of forty feet."

The Gunner nodded, and bent forward to peer through the translucent depths at what had been, a quarter of a hour before, the dwelling-place of both. Somewhere beneath the surface, still affixed to the submerged stern, was the Destroyer's main anti-submarine armament--her depth-charges. One had been in the tray, ready set for instant release by the jerk of a lever, when the collision occurred.

"If the stern breaks off, that depth-charge'll sink with it, and explode when it gets down to forty feet."

"That's right, sir," said the Gunner, with melancholy calm.

"And the explosion'll rip this bulkhead out of her, and down the fore part will go. Half a ship's better'n none, Mr. Hasthorpe."

Mr. Hasthorpe agreed, but inclined to the view that he'd rather have kept the other half, given a choice in the matter.

"There was a nice li'l drum o' paint aft there we had give us at Taranto, sir, an' some ostridge feathers under my bunk, what I'd promised my old woman."

A long, sleek swell passed beneath them on its unhurried path from Africa to the Adriatic. The dark wreckage beneath the surface stirred like weed in a current, and the deck plating under their feet trembled ominously as the hulk rolled.

"A few more of those," said the youthful Captain, "and down goes the after part. I shall lose my ship." The speaker had rather less than half a ship to lose, but he scrambled down on to the buckled plating of the upper deck, hastily unbuttoning his drill tunic.

"That depth-charge must be set to 'safe,' then it can't explode, however far it sinks."

"It's a couple of fathoms below the surface. I ain't no Annette Kellerman meself," said the Gunner.

His Captain waved the dinghy alongside. "That's nothing. I'll have a shot for it--if I can only find the beastly thing in all that tangle."

"An' if another swell passes when you're in the water, sir, likely as not the stern'll drop off an'----" The sentence remained unfinished, for his Captain had slipped over the side into the waiting dinghy and was busily divesting himself of his clothes.

"You'd better get clear," he shouted to his confrère in the other Destroyer, "till I've finished. No I'm not going to bathe!" He explained the situation while the dinghy man rested on his oars and musingly contemplated the big toe of his left foot round which a shred of spun yarn was twisted. The Captain of the other Destroyer raised his arm to show he understood; the telegraph gongs clanged, and the Destroyer moved away from the side of the derelict. The dinghy paddled a few strokes, and the nude pink figure in the stern bent down and stared into the water.

"Right," he said presently. "Keep the boat there, Simmonds." He took a few deep breaths, standing on the after thwart, and then dived.

The oarsman leaned over the gunwale and held his breath, gazing under the boat like a man in a trance.

After all the tumult of the collision the moment was one of deathly stillness. The tramp lay black against the sunlight half a mile away. The Destroyer was turning in a wide circle, with a flick of white under her stern, and close at hand, amid the wreckage of the still floating unfortunate, the Gunner stood motionless, staring.

The dinghy man suddenly sat upright and took a stroke with one paddle. The head and shoulders of the Lieutenant-in-Command broke the oily surface with an abrupt splash. He gripped the stern of the dinghy and heaved himself out of the water. Then, stark and dripping, he stood upright, transfigured by the Mediterranean sunshine into a figure of shining gold, and, raising his arms above his head, semaphored two letters to the watching Destroyer--"OK," finishing with a triumphant wave of the hand.

A thin cheer broke out along the crowded rail, the syren sounded a toot of congratulation, and as the resultant wisp of steam dissolved in the air the dinghy suddenly rose, rocked on the slope of a passing swell, and dropped down its smooth flank. The portion of the Destroyer that remained afloat rolled twice; there was a succession of big swirls in the water, an ugly grinding sound, and a snap. The Lieutenant-in-Command gave a short, hard laugh.

"There go your peacock feathers," he said to the Gunner, as he climbed on board the wrecked remnant of his command.

"Ostridge," amended Mr. Hasthorpe, and clambered forward to the towing bollard and the preliminaries of a piece of seamanship that brought half a Destroyer safely to the dock a hundred and seventy miles away.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

_The foregoing are based on actual occurrences in the War, and, as far as the author is aware, conform to fact. The characters are imaginary; their words and thoughts those of the writer's imagination._

IV

THE ACTION BETWEEN H.M.S. _PRIZE_
AND GERMAN SUBMARINE U93

(1917)

The German submarine U93 sailed from Emden on Friday, April 13, 1917, on her maiden trip to the Atlantic. She carried eighteen torpedoes and 500 rounds of ammunition for her two 3.9 mm. guns; her complement consisted of thirty-seven officers and men, under the command of Captain Lieutenant F. Freiherr Spiegel von und zu Peckelsheim.

A tendency on the part of the crew to regard the date as ill-omened was met by the Commander with the assurance that the combination of Friday and the figure thirteen would cancel any bad luck usually associated with either.

About 8.30 P.M. (Greenwich time) on April 30 U93 was in approximately Latitude 49° 40N, Longitude 11° 40W., making her way back to Germany with the sinking of eleven merchant ships to her discredit.

The Commander of U93 was more than satisfied with the result of his cruise: moreover, he had two horses running in the Berlin races during the second week in May, and was anxious to be back in time for the event. But on sighting the sails of a small top-sail schooner coming over the horizon, he decided to delay his return a few hours and complete the round dozen of ships sunk; also the size of the schooner would, he judged, round off his tonnage figures evenly.

He opened fire on the schooner at three miles range, and, as this was the last ship to be sunk during the trip, gave orders that all men who could be spared from their duties below might come on deck and witness the sinking.

The schooner in question was His Majesty's Ship _Prize_ of 200 tons, commanded by Lieutenant William Edward Saunders, Royal Naval Reserve, with two 12-pounders concealed in collapsible deck-houses, and one aft on a disappearing mounting under the hatchway covers of the after hold. She also carried two Lewis guns, and was incidentally the first German prize (then called the _Else_) captured by Great Britain on the outbreak of war.

In complete ignorance of these details, however, the Commander of U93 turned his submarine in a wide circle in order to close his victim cautiously from astern, firing in a leisurely manner from his foremost gun as he approached.

Immediately the submarine opened fire the alarm gongs sounded on board the _Prize_. With the exception of the Commanding Officer and Skipper Meade, R.N.R. (Trawler Section), who were concealed inside the steel companion-cover amidships, and six hands in charge of Skipper Brewer, R.N.R. (Trawler Section), every man threw himself flat on the deck under cover of the bulwarks and crawled to his action-station, where he lay awaiting orders. The two foremost guns were in charge of the second-in-command, Lieutenant William D. Beaton, Royal Naval Reserve, who lay at the foot of the foremast with his ears to the voice-pipe from the Captain's observation position.

The ship's head was put up into the wind, and the six hands in charge of Mr. Brewer, who formed what was technically known as a "panic party," launched the small boat and abandoned the ship with every outward symptom of haste and disorder. The time was then 8.45 P.M.

The ship's head fell away to eastward, and the enemy slowly followed her round, still firing at her in a deliberate manner. Of two shots that hit the water-line and burst inside the ship, one put the auxiliary motor-engine out of action, wounding the Stoker Petty Officer in charge; and the other shattered the wireless-room, wounding the operator inside it. The cabins and mess-room were wrecked, the mainmast shot through in two places, and the ship began to make water fast.

In spite of this heavy punishment and the intensity of the strain, the guns' crews remained motionless on the deck while the submarine drew closer. She was invisible to all on board the schooner except the two figures inside the companion, who through slits in the plating were able to watch her movements and communicate the closing range to the guns.

With unrelaxed caution, however, the submarine continued to approach slowly from astern, and it was on this precise bearing that none of the schooner's guns would bear. The leaden minutes dragged by like an eternity. The Commanding Officer of the _Prize_ several times left his place of observation and crawled on hands and knees from man to man, steadying them and impressing on them the necessity for keeping out of sight. One of the port foremost gun's crew, a lad of eighteen, twitched uncontrollably with excitement like a galvanised frog as he sprawled face-downwards.

"What are you tremblin' about?" demanded the gun-layer in a hoarse, contemptuous whisper. "You can only die onest."

Twenty minutes passed thus in almost intolerable suspense. Then the crew of the after gun, straining their ears for the slightest sound, heard the fitting to which the patent-log line was attached splinter as it was wrenched away from its screws. The submarine had closed until she fouled the schooner's log-line and carried it away.

The next moment U93 put her helm to starboard and glided out on to the port quarter of the schooner at seventy yards' clear range.

It was then 9.5 P.M., and Lieutenant Saunders, satisfied at last that his guns would bear, shouted, "Down screens! Open fire!" At the same moment the White Ensign was hoisted.

The Shipwright, whose duty it was to release the after-gun screen, knocked the catch and the hatchway cover slid back like the front of an American roll-top desk. With the jerk of a lever the gun rose into position and opened fire two seconds later.

The foremost gun's crew leaped to their feet, and the deck-houses collapsed simultaneously, unmasking the foremost twelve-pounders.

The enemy was not easily taken by surprise, however. As the White Ensign appeared above the bulwarks of the _Prize_, the submarine fired two rounds from her guns. One hit the schooner's superstructure, and the other the water-line. This shell burst in the interior of the ship, severely wounding the Shipwright, who had rushed below to fetch one of the Lewis guns which were kept at the bottom of the ladder.

The Commander of the submarine put his helm hard over with the intention of ramming the schooner, but realising that she was inside his turning circle, reversed his helm and tried to escape. The next moment a shell from the schooner's after gun struck the foremost gun of the submarine, blowing it to atoms and annihilating the crew.

The Commanding Officer of the _Prize_, on realising that the submarine was heading away from him, rang down the order for full speed to the engine-room. Unknown to him, however, one engine was completely disabled, and the other, after driving the ship for about one hundred yards, also stopped. There was practically no wind, and the ship lay motionless on the water.

In the meanwhile, however, the gunlayer of the after gun had hit the conning tower of the submarine with his second shot, and demolished it; a deckhand at the same time raked the remainder of the survivors off her deck with the Lewis gun. A third shot from the after twelve-pounder struck the submarine in the vicinity of the engine-room and disabled her, but she continued to carry her way until about 500 yards from the _Prize_, when she came to a standstill, slewing broadside on to her vanquisher. There were no survivors visible, and a dull red glare from internal fires showed through the rents in her hull. At the thirty-sixth round she sank stern first, four minutes after the commencement of the action.

The "panic party" in the boat were then ordered to pull over the scene of the action and search for survivors. Darkness was falling fast, but they succeeded in picking up the Commander of the submarine, who had been knocked overboard by one of the bodies blown from the foremost gun, the Navigating Warrant Officer, and a Stoker Petty Officer. No other survivors could be found, and the boat returned with the prisoners, conscientiously "covered" by a Browning pistol in the fist of the Trawler Skipper at the helm.

While the search for survivors was being carried out by the ship's boat a survey of the damage on board the schooner revealed a serious state of affairs. The water was pouring through the shot-holes and stood a foot deep between decks. It continued to gain in spite of the employment of every available man on pumping and bailing, and the temporary plugging of the holes with hammocks and blankets.

Fortunately the sea was calm, with very little or no wind. The ship was put on the port tack and every possible device employed to list her to starboard, all the damage she had received being on the port side. The boat was swung out at the starboard davits and filled with water, coal and water shifted to the starboard side, and both cables ranged along the starboard scuppers. By these means sufficient list was obtained to lift the shot-holes clear of the water and to enable them to be temporarily patched.

Immediately after boarding the _Prize_ the German submarine Commander offered his word of honour to make no attempt to escape, and promised that he and his men would do all in their power to assist. His parole was accepted, and both he and his men set to with a will, prisoners and captors working side by side to save the ship. The Navigating Warrant Officer voluntarily attended to the wounded and dressed their wounds.

As soon as it was realised that the water was no longer gaining on them, the attention of the Commanding Officer of the _Prize_ was devoted to an attempt to restarting the motors. In the course of this work a fire broke out in the engine-room, due to sparks from the motor igniting the oil which had leaked from the damaged tank. This was successfully extinguished, and the wounded Stoker Petty Officer, assisted by the German Stoker Petty Officer, succeeded in getting one motor started. By 11.45 P.M. on April 30 all sail was set, and with one engine working the _Prize_ shaped a course for the Irish Coast, 120 miles to the north-eastward.

Land was not sighted until the afternoon of May 2, during which time the crew, assisted by the prisoners, laboured at the pumps day and night. They were finally picked up 5 miles to the westward of the Old Head of Kinsale by one of H.M. Motor Launches and towed into Kinsale Harbour. Here two of the wounded were disembarked, and improvised leak-stoppers, made out of the pieces of plank with blankets stretched over them, were bolted over the shot-holes.

On May 4 the _Prize_, with her three prisoners still on board, left Kinsale Harbour in tow of one of H.M. Drifters, and arrived at Milford Haven, where she was based, at 8 A.M. on May 4.

During the passage an enemy minelaying-submarine was sighted on the surface to the southward about two miles away. The crew of the _Prize_ immediately went to "Action Stations" in the hope that the enemy would close to within effective range, and for an hour they waited in tense excitement, while the submarine steered a parallel course to theirs. Apparently, however, her caution got the better of her curiosity, for she finally drew ahead and was not seen again. The remainder of the voyage passed uneventfully.

His Majesty the King, in recognition of the conspicuous gallantry displayed by the Officers and men of the _Prize_, was pleased to award the Victoria Cross to Lieutenant W. E. Saunders, who was also promoted to the rank of Temporary Lieutenant Commander, Royal Naval Reserve.

Lieutenant W. D. Beaton, R.N.R., the Second-in-Command, was made a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order, the two Skippers, R.N.R. (T), were decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross, and the remainder of the ship's company received the Distinguished Service Medal.

A few months later H.M.S. _Prize_, under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Saunders, V.C., R.N.R., was lost with all hands, presumably as the result of an engagement with one or more enemy submarines. The death of this most gallant officer and his efficient and highly trained crew was a disaster the Navy and the nation could ill afford.

V

THE FORFEIT

(1916)

1

The sun was sinking low behind the peach-trees when workers from the rice-fields came straggling back to the village. By twos and threes they came, toil-stained women and boys, with here and there an old, gnarled man, their shadows long on the road before them.

Tani, maker of sandals, looked up from his work as each one came abreast his shop, responding gravely to the low-voiced, musical greetings. But after the last worker had passed, his eyes, shaded beneath the palm of his hand, still sought the road beyond the village in patient expectancy.

Presently he heard the distant click of clogs, and a little figure came in sight. Her cotton kimono was looped to the knees, the mud of the paddy-fields still clung to her slender brown limbs. She drew near.

"Greeting, Su Su O!"

"Greeting, Tani!" The girl paused before the shop, with quaint genuflection and the gentle hiss of indrawn breath that in Japan is a courtesy. The sandal-maker sat back on his heels.

"Tired, Su Su O?"

"Very," replied the girl. She moved the heavy, mud-caked hoe from her shoulder and leaned on the haft, looking down at him with a little smile. Her mouth, with its geranium-scarlet lips, drooped wearily at the corners when in repose: her whole attitude betrayed fatigue.

The man frowned. "It is not well, Su Su O, that you should do coolie work. You are not of coolie stock, nor yet of coolie strength. Su Su O, hearken yet again! Be my wife! Come and live with me here, and let me labour for us both! I need you so, little Flower. I want you for my wife ... not to see you only at sunrise and dusk, passing my dwelling by."

The sun set swiftly; swiftly the purple night swept up over rice-field and cherry-orchard. Here and there along the village street a coloured lantern glowed suddenly out of the darkness; through the frail oiled-paper walls of the cottages drifted the voices of children and the tinkle of a samisen. The sandal-maker stood up and took the girl's hand in his.

"I am lonely without you, Su Su O," he pleaded.

Her lip quivered. "I too am lonely, Tani; but I am a beggar--a coolie girl without father or mother. I cannot marry you: I have no dowry. I can bring nothing to the wedding--save myself, in rags. It would bring disgrace upon us."

In vain he pleaded, all the poetic imagery of the Asiatic upon his tongue. In vain he scoffed at convention--that terrible, inexorable convention of the East; still the dainty head shook in plaintive negation. Some unknown strain in her blood set honour before love, bowed to the decrees that had ruled her unknown forbears. At length, as if fearing that her resolution might weaken from sheer physical weariness--and she loved very dearly too--she turned towards the village.

"I must go, Tani. It is of no avail.... Nay, entreat me not further.... Nay, Tani, I am so tired...."

The sandal-maker stepped back among his wares. Punctiliously they went through the little ceremony of genuflection and gesture. Click-click went the clogs up the narrow street, and among the shadows the sandal-maker stood with head bent, as if listening, long after the sound had died away.

That evening a traveller came to the village, a little wizened man, clad somewhat incongruously in a grey silk kimono, a bowler hat, and elastic-sided boots. Rumour whispered that he was the owner of a fashionable _cha-ya_ (tea-shop) in Tokyo, renowned for the beauty of its Geishas. Gossip spreading quickly from door to door supplemented this as the night wore on. The honourable stranger was touring the country on the look-out for pretty girls. He paid well, they said, and his establishment was much frequented by Europeans, who, as all the world knows, part freely with the sen. Here was a chance for a girl with looks!

The old gentleman was sipping saki in the guest-room of the village inn when Su Su O was announced. His keen old eyes noted with appreciation the lines of the childish figure as she bowed her forehead to the matting. But when she raised herself to her knees, and faced him with downcast eyes, he pursed up his mouth as if contemplating a whistle. Had he been a European he probably would have whistled, but this is not an art practised among owners of _cha-ya_. Otherwise his face was expressionless.

"Who is your mother?" he inquired, breaking the silence.

"She is dead, most honourable one. A peasant woman. I reside at the house of Matsu the charcoal-burner and his wife."

"And your father?"

"I do not know, O honourable one."

"Ah!" said her interlocutor, as if something had been explained that he did not understand. Peasants do not beget daughters with hair like Su Su O's, nor with ears like tiny pink shells, nor yet slender wrists and fingers. "And you wish to be a Geisha?"

Su Su O prostrated herself in silent acquiescence.

"I will take you on condition that you remain with me three years." The heart of Su Su O sank. Would Tani wait three years? "And I will pay you"--he named what was to the girl a considerable sum. That clinched it: with a dowry like this she could marry Tani over and over again. Yet her fingers trembled as she painted her signature to the indentures, and her heart was sick at the thought of the parting. Even "passing his dwelling by" was better than never seeing it at all. But she left for Tokyo the next day, and a few moments were all that she had for saying good-bye.

"Oh, but you will wait?" she pleaded. "It will soon pass, the three years, and I will come back rich, and--marry you, Tani."

Tani's reply, in flowery Japanese, was to the effect that he would wait a hundred million years if necessary.

* * * * *

Her life in the Tokyo tea-house was no worse than that led by the thousands of other Geishas in the great straggling city. In some respects it was better, because European tourists of many nationalities frequented the establishment, and her beauty was such as to appeal not only to Japanese ideas, but Western as well. For one thing, her cheek-bones were not accentuated; and her mouth, scarlet-lipped and tremulous at times with laughter, you would have thought adorable whatever part of the world you hailed from. Also there was something very bewitching about her plaintive love-ditties (even if you couldn't understand them), which she sang in a minor key to guitar accompaniment through her inconsiderable nose.

One day there came to the house a German officer on leave from Tsingtau. He was a big, bearded youth with blue eyes, and--this was a ceaseless wonder and delight to the Geishas--the centre of his front upper row of teeth was crowned with a diamond.

Attracted by the glitter in his mouth, and inured to the oafish attentions of European customers, she suffered him to put his arm round her. Without further warning, he lowered his bearded face and kissed her publicly on the lips.

To the Japanese mind the act was an indignity--worse, indecent. With a deft wriggle she twisted an arm free and struck him in the face, her eyes blazing. The big man laughed uproariously, imprisoned her arm, and kissed her again and again, while she quivered helplessly. Released at length, she faced him like a tiger-cat.

"Swine!" she cried. "Son of a foreign swine!"--and struck the piece of gold that he extended towards her out of his hand.

2

The railway terminus at Tokyo was gay with bunting and thronged by a great crowd of people. A brass band somewhere out of sight broke into crashing martial music. "Banzai!" roared the khaki-clad figures in the closely packed carriages, and in response the women and children waved little hand-flags that bore the national emblem on a white ground.

Japan had declared war on Germany, and the occasion was the departure of a Reserve Division which was shortly to operate against the German fortress of Tsingtau. The windows of the carriages were blocked by grim, fighting faces: men from the North. Among them was Tani, sometime maker of sandals; and on the platform beneath his window, like a painted butterfly hovering round the cannon's mouth, stood Su Su O, eyes suspiciously bright.

"Return if the gods will it!" she whispered, echoing the murmured farewells of mothers, wives, and lovers. The grim memories of ten years ago still lingered. The vaulted roof of the terminus had echoed so many farewells; so few who parted amid the roars of "_Banzai!_" had greeted one another again. "If the gods will," said the women now, and the younger men still shouted "_Banzai!_" in reply. But at the last, as the long train steamed slowly out of the station, the finite human heart held sway. The oft-repeated "_Banzai!_" changed to "_Sai-onara! Sai-i-onara!_"--the saddest, most plaintive-sounding farewell yet fashioned by the human tongue.

A month later found Tani leading a moist and somewhat precarious existence in a trench before Tsingtau. His recollection of the siege since he took part in it had been a series of blurred impressions, mud being predominant throughout. It had seemed an eternity of mud, of ceaseless rifle and artillery fire, of being soaked to the skin, of cold, hunger, and fatigue. Once or twice there had been moments of ferocious hand-to-hand fighting. They were good moments, those; and as he sat in the bottom of a trench cleaning the bolt of his rifle with a piece of oily rag, his thoughts recurred to them with a certain grim enjoyment.

By clearing away the earth at the top of the trench he was able to catch an occasional glimpse of his surroundings. An amphitheatre of barren hills, with the gleam of the sea in the far distance; a small, slow-moving speck upon it that was a Japanese or Allied warship shelling the fortress. Elsewhere, as far as he could see, the ground was scarred by bursting shell, and herring-boned by wire entanglements. Ahead, where the picric shells were pitching, a yellow cloud hung low, as the mists sometimes cling to the slopes of Fujiyama. There were intermittent points of jagged fire beneath the cloud; shrapnel bursting about the German redoubts.

It all represented to Tani a certain amount of uphill ground to be covered under fire: how soon he did not know, but the rest was familiar enough. The inferno of shell-fire that was bursting ahead would redouble till the mere contemplation of it almost stunned the senses. Then the order rippled along to advance: you leaped out of your trench and ran as well as you could across the debris of the last attack and the chaos of barbed wire till the next trench was reached. Sometimes you just dropped into it and panted; sometimes you met other men there, fierce, blue-eyed men who had to be bayoneted. Bullets would shriek and whimper overhead, or hit something with a sullen "Zip!" Men grunted and seemed to fall asleep, or rolled over and lay twitching in a novel and rather ludicrous fashion. And there was the ceaseless rain, the smell of cordite smoke, the bewildering roar of the howitzers.

That was War, as understood by Tani, sometime maker of sandals.

Early one morning a flask of raw saki was passed along the advanced trench. Tani drank deep and tightened his belt, for he was hungry; the spirit ran through his veins like fire. "It is the end," said the man next to him, a battle-scarred veteran of Nogi's Army, with a queer note of exultation in his voice. There, was a sudden lull in the firing. Whistles sounded shrilly.

An officer near Tani who had been divesting himself of his overcoat leapt to his feet with a shout. With an answering roar the trenches seemed to vomit wave upon wave of steel, and yellow-faced, khaki-clad figures. They swept forward, stabbing and cheering, hewing their way through the wire entanglement in the face of a tempest of bullets, leaving their dead dangling as they fell.

Tani reached a line of sandbags at the crest of a rise unhurt, and drove his bayonet into the chest of a German who was clubbing his rifle. He heard the breast-bone crunch as the steel went home to the muzzle of the rifle. The German fell sideways, twisting the weapon out of Tani's grip with his weight. Then Tani saw a bearded officer, the haft of a broken sword dangling from a leather thong at his wrist, struggling to reload his revolver.

As a mongoose jumps for a snake the Japanese leapt at the German's throat. They fell together in the bottom of the trench, and for a moment they fought with their hands, in the welter of mud and water, trampled on by other combatants, breathing in short, savage gasps. Then Tani got the "neck-lock" he had been struggling for. Something snapped with a sound like a dry twig breaking, and the German's head dropped back. Tani sat up, spitting and wiping the mud out of his eyes. His adversary was dead, and lay staring up at the grey sky as if amazed. The bearded lips were drawn back, showing his teeth; one of these sparkled curiously. Save for the dead and wounded, the trench was deserted: the assault had swept forward. Above them was a sound of great cheering. Someone was wedging a colour-staff between the sandbags; the emblem of the Rising Sun, tattered and stained, stirred in the morning breeze. Tsingtau had fallen.

Tani leaned over to examine more closely the phenomenon in the dead man's mouth. Then he emitted an interested grunt. The centre tooth of the German's upper jaw was crowned with a diamond.

3

Tani, maker of sandals, leaned over the parapet of the little cedar-wood bridge that spanned an artificial hike in the temple grounds. Every now and again the moon's placid reflection on the water broke into widening ripples as a carp rose. In the stillness the sound of its feeding was audible--a tiny "gluck!" as if a greedy child were smacking its lips. It was late spring, the season of the cherry-blossom, and the light airs of evening came in puffs across the water, laden with faint fragrance. The doors of the temple stood open: inside, a lamp burned dully before the altar.

After a while the man took from his pocket a little pouch of oiled silk and emptied the contents into his palm. There was some dusty tobacco, two or three matches, and a small object that caught the light as he moved his hand. This he retained, and put the pouch and the rest of its contents back into his pocket.

"Click-click, click-click!" Light, metal-shod sandals were approaching from the direction of the village. A form fluttered towards him out of the darkness like a soft grey moth.

"Have you waited long, Tani?"

"So long, Su Su O, that the night had grown into Eternity, and the sound of my sighing checked the very lamentation of the frogs!"

She laughed in her delicious gurgling way, and pressed her face against his sleeve. He slipped one hand beneath her chin, raising the flawless oval face to the full light of the moon.

"Thou art very beautiful," he said, half below his breath. "A thousand men assuredly have loved thee since we bade farewell."

Su Su O sighed. "But none have laid a finger on me in love, Tani--save one, and him I struck."

The man smiled a little, and then his face grew grave. He fretted with the sling which supported his left arm. "What manner of man was he, this love-besotted fool?"

"A German, Tani; a man of great stature, bearded, with a jewel set in the centre tooth of his upper jaw."

Tani released her chin. "A diamond, belike, Little Flower?"

She nodded assent. "And by force he kissed me--upon the mouth."

"Ah!" For a moment the sandal-maker stared across the water, his eyes narrowed into slits, his face inscrutable. Then, with a sudden jerk of the wrist, he sent something spinning through the air--something that glittered like a point of flame in the moonlight. It fell with a splash, scaring the lazy carp that lay just beneath the surface.

"He has paid his forfeit," said Tani grimly.

All uncomprehending, Su Su O nestled against him and slipped her slender hand into his. Together they turned towards the temple.

VI

SUPPER BEER

(1914)

1

With the turn of the tide the wind backed and swept a wet mist in from the sea. During the day promenaders had thronged the stone pier that partly encircled the deserted harbour; townspeople for the most part--stolid, sombre-clad folk, taking their constitutionals soberly, as if they formed part of some inflexible schedule that regulated their lives. In the afternoons a sprinkling of infantrymen from the fort intermingled with them; loose-limbed young conscripts in grey uniforms, with heads too small for their bodies--a phenomenon partly accounted for by the zeal of the garrison barber, and partly by the size of their grotesque boots.

Now, however, as the evening set in with every promise of dirty weather, the promenaders turned in pairs towards the town. The angler who had been fishing in the shelter of the stone beacon slowly wound in his lines, gathered together his paraphernalia, and departed also. A watchman, carrying a short ladder over his shoulder, came and examined the automatic revolving gear of the lantern, and after polishing the reflector, briskly returned to the town, taking his ladder with him.

With the exception of a solitary figure pacing backwards and forwards under the lee of the rough wall, the pier was soon deserted. But this figure's constitutional appeared to partake of the nature of a vigil, for every few minutes he paused and stared seaward into the mist through a pair of binoculars.

His face, as much of it as was visible above the collar of his ulster, was that of an elderly man, thin and aristocratic-looking. When not gazing out to sea, he contemplated his slow-pacing feet with mild, thoughtful blue eyes through rimless pince-nez. One cheek-bone was ornamented by a duelling-sabre scar.

Half an hour passed, while the spray drifted over the sea-wall and collected under-foot in shallow pools that alternately mirrored the waning light and darkened as a fresh gust of wind hurled itself in from the North Sea. Out at the entrance to the harbour a solitary gull faced the wind with steady beats of its powerful wings, calling with querulous persistency. Lights were beginning to twinkle here and there along the deserted sea-front when the watcher at the pier-head lowered his glasses, hastily wiped the lenses, and raised them again to his eyes. Then he made a guttural observation in an undertone.

Out of the grey smudge of sea and sky a small vessel suddenly became an object distinct, making for the mouth of the harbour: a short, squat craft, with high bows and a tall raking funnel set far aft. To judge by the derricks topped up to her mainmast she had every appearance of being a trawler; yet for a trawler returning in the height of the fishing season she gave evidence of very empty holds by the buoyancy of her movements. She carried no lights, though the dusk was now settling fast.

A short, thick-set man in a blue jersey stood at the wheel; at his side was a younger man, a tall, upright figure muffled in a thick pilot coat. The crew, with the exception of two who were getting ready to make the vessel fast, stood in a group in the waist. For a North Sea trawler the complement of hands appeared somewhat in excess of the usual requirements.

The man at the helm brought the vessel smoothly alongside without acknowledging the presence of the watcher on the pier. His companion, however, smiled a greeting, raised his hand as if to salute, and checked himself. As the trawler went astern and her way slackened, he jumped out and joined the figure in the ulster.

"Well?" asked the elder man.

"Absolutely successful! Twenty-four, all told. I got right across to within ten miles of their coast."

The other gave an abrupt, disconcerting laugh. "You laid them in fours, as you were ordered?"

The young man nodded. "They cannot miss them. And if a ship fails to touch one direct she must cross one of the wires that connect them. The impetus of her speed will swing them aft against her side--two on each side.... Or three on one and one on the other...! Then----!" The speaker made a graceful upward gesture with his hands and smiled.

"And you were not sighted?"

"Once. The fog lifted a little, and one of their Light Cruisers must have seen us. But I was flying their flag----" He laughed again. "Oh, they are fools! Fools! They had time to blow us out of the water six times over before I could slip back into the fog again." The speaker lit a cigarette and moistened his dry lips. "Then I came back as quickly as possible. And now I want my supper and some beer--it's thirsty work, that--that trawling in the North Sea!" He took a Service revolver out of the side pocket of his coarse reefer jacket and extracted the cartridges from it as they walked along the deserted quay.

His companion took his arm affectionately. "My dear boy," he ejaculated. "Beer! Come along! You shall have a gallon--you have earned it! Herr Gott in Himmel! You shall swim in it if you like."

2

It was the supper hour on board the Cruiser, and the "watch below" were enjoying their leisure, after the fashion of the sailor-man, along the crowded batteries. The sailor's meal, especially in war time, is a satisfying affair; but he does not linger over it as one lingers over the tea-table ashore. For one thing, the surroundings are cramped and stuffy, and the time is short; there are other needs more pressing: there is a duck jumper to be scrubbed by to-morrow perhaps; or a few more inches to be added to the wonderful patchwork quilt destined some day to be the pride and ornament of somebody's home. Besides, on deck one can smoke a pipe.

The battery was thronged with men; many were sitting in pairs at a mess-kettle, up to their elbows in soap-suds; forward by the break of the forecastle the ship's barber was reaping a rich harvest of pennies--a "penny a shave and twopence hair-cut" is the recognised tariff. A sewing-machine whirred busily in the lee of a gun-shield; the crew "standing by" the gun exchanged lazy chaff with the bearded sempster. Their watch was nearly at an end, and with the prospect of a meal ahead the sailor brightens wonderfully. The ship's pet goat wandered from group to group, gravely accepting the attentions--cigarettes, banana-skins, and the like--that came his way during stand-easy.

Out of the wreaths of fog and tobacco-smoke forward drifted presently the strains of an accordion----

"It's a long, long way to Tipperary...." The voices of the men, singing under their breath as they worked, blended restfully with the throb of the engines and the swish of water past the ship's side. A little breeze sprang up, tearing rifts here and there in the surrounding fog; a few pale gleams of sunlight filtered through, and on the fore-bridge of the Cruiser the Yeoman of Signals raised his glass and steadied it against the topmost rail. Suddenly he stiffened like a pointer.

"Trawler right ahead, sir!" His lynx-like eye and almost lifelong training told before the others could see anything. The Captain stepped out of the tiny chart-house, where he had been busy with the chart and a pair of dividers.

"There, sir." The Officer of the Watch extended his arm and forefinger. The Navigating Lieutenant joined them, and together they peered through the shifting veil of vapour.

"Yes, I see...." The Captain adjusted his glasses the fraction of a degree. "She's flying our colours ... Can you see her number...?" The Officer of the Watch moved to the voice-pipe, as if to give an order to the helmsman.

"No; steady as you go!" said the Captain. "She's a mile away yet. I want to see her a bit closer--ah..." He broke off disgustedly as the fog closed down on them again, blotting out the pale sunlight. The distant trawler vanished as a picture vanishes from the screen when a hand withdraws the lantern slide. The Captain blinked as the tiny beads of moisture collected on his eyelashes, and rubbed his glasses impatiently. "Damn this fog! Put a look-out in the eyes of the ship." Going to the voice-pipe, he gave a curt order to the Quartermaster at the helm and came back again to the compass. "I didn't like the look of that fellow, for all his display of bunting. Too many men on deck for one of our trawlers." He looked up into the blindfold drifts overhead. "Oh, for one little minute...!"

The Officer of the Watch had stepped to the head of the ladder and beckoned to a messenger:

"Jump down and tell the Captain of the Forecastle to tell off a hand as look-out forward in the eyes of the ship. He's to get him there at once!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" The boy sped off on his errand and darted off along the upper deck. The petty officer whose official title was "Captain of the Forecastle" was seated with his back against the engine-room casings, playing "crib" with a Chief Stoker. The messenger pulled up panting:

"Please--the--Officer--of--the--Watch--sez--tell --off--a--hand--to--look--out--in--the--eyes--of--the--ship!" he gasped. He had run so fast and spoke so quickly, in his fear lest he should forget the message, that to a less trained ear it would have sounded unintelligible.

The Captain of the Forecastle turned a clear grey eye upon him, and moistened a thumb preparatory to dealing. "Right, my son.... Nip along on to the fo's'cle an' pass the word to Able-Seaman Eggers--'e's one of the party standin' by the foremost gun--to get up quick 's 'ell into the eyes of the ship. Tell 'im to get back smart to 'is gun if 'e's wanted. An' then jump down to 19 Mess an' warn Able-Seaman Leckey to relieve 'im nex' watch. Tell 'em both from me to keep their eyes skinned, or they'll get 'ung at the port fore-tops'l yard-arm!"

The boy departed as if wings were attached to his bare heels, his freckled face solemn with the burden of these grave responsibilities. In his Pantheon three deities presided over the affairs of men. There was Mr. Corbett the Boatswain, terrible in wrath, iron-handed, implacable, who drank rum (so rumour had it) as weak mortals drink swipes, and could put an eye-splice in a bit of six-inch wire single-handed in his sleep.... A more mysterious power was that invested in a trinity of Lieutenants known collectively as "Orficer-of-the-Watch"; and, lastly, there was the Captain of the Forecastle. But the greatest of these was the Captain of the Forecastle. Other gods there may have been, but they were too remote and magnificent to concern themselves about Boys 1st Class, or to be concerned about.

Able-Seaman Eggers was leaning against the shield of his gun, inhaling the delicate aroma of bloaters that drifted up from the ship's galley. He hoped his mess was going to have bloaters for supper; he liked them best when they had soft roes.... To him came Mercury, in the form of the fore-bridge messenger, repeating breathlessly the edict of the Captain of the Forecastle. Able-Seaman Eggers accepted the change of duties philosophically; he would as soon spend the remainder of his watch in the "eyes" of the ship as closed up round a gun.

"Oo sez?" he queried--not from any desire to question the order, but because it was necessary to maintain appearances before the Boy 1st Class who delivered it.

"Cap'n of the Forecastle. An' 'e sez you gotter keep your eyes skinned."

Able-Seaman Eggers cuffed the emissary of the Great Powers for form's sake, and betook himself into the foremost point of the "V" formed by the ship's bows.

* * * * *

Down in the Wardroom the occupants had finished tea; the Paymaster rose from the table, and crossed over to the notice-board, carrying a sheet of foolscap over which he had expended much thought and labour. He pinned it up, and stepped back a pace to admire the effect.

The Young Doctor came over to his side. "What are you up to, Pay?"

The other smiled in all the pride of authorship. "I don't know what you think, but I call that rather a neat bit of wit, eh?"

The notice read as follows:

"GRAND QUOITS COMPETITION."

"Subject to interference by atmospherics, barratry, mines, fog, lyddite shell bursting on board, and the King's enemies, it is proposed to hold the above in the dog watch whenever possible:

"First Prize--A good cigar.
"Second Prize--A blood orange.
"Third Prize--A bag of nuts.

"Penalty for throwing a quoit overboard:
"First Offence--Fined half a crown.
"Second Offence--Thrown overboard himself.

"And what'll he do the third time?" inquired the Surgeon, who was suspected of being Irish. "But anyway, it's a grand idea--let's go and play before the light gets too bad."

The Paymaster stepped into his cabin and returned with half a dozen discs of indiarubber. "I wheedled these out of the 'Chief.' Padre, come on and play quoits--you and I'll take on 'Pills' and the Gunnery Lieutenant."

"Never played in my life. I should probably chuck them down the funnel or hit the Skipper in the eye on the fore-bridge."

"That doesn't matter--it's your money we want. Come along, 'Guns,' we'll take these two on." The Paymaster led the way out of the Mess, followed by the other three.

A Lieutenant dozing in the one remaining armchair opened his eyes and watched their retreating backs. "Noisy devils," he murmured drowsily. "Why don't they sleep when they can?" and lapsed into slumber again.

A Marine servant entered to remove the tea-things and tidy up the Mess. As a matter of fact, there was not much to tidy: a table and the bare number of chairs required to accommodate the members was all the woodwork in the place. Two ash-trays that no one used stood on the stove, together with a novel, several pipes, and an open tin of tobacco. On the sideboard lay a little pile of newspapers a week old and a "Bradshaw"--pathetic reminder of the days when one looked up trains with a view to leave and suchlike vanities. A couple of war-maps ornamented the bulkhead: otherwise, the Mess--the home and place for sleep, meals, and recreation of a dozen English gentlemen--was bare and unadorned.

The voices of the quoit-players outside came in through the open door, mingling with the soft thud of the rubber quoits as they played. The figure in the arm-chair stirred slightly and smiled in his sleep.

* * * * *

Forward in the bows of the ship Able-Seaman Eggers leaned over the rail, staring into the mist. The ship's bows seemed to be carving their way through liquid jade that fell away on either side of the bows with a deep sobbing sound. He wondered when the bell would strike ... he wanted his supper...

A blinding sheet of flame leaped into the air, hurling a mountain of water after it with a report that rent the fog in tatters.

What was left of the cruiser lifted half clear of the water and lurched forward, sickened and stricken ... her stern rose slowly in the air, the propellers kicking wildly.

After a while objects began to descend out of the riven patches of mist overhead--fragments of wood and steel, wisps of clothing still alight ... shattered images of God...

Then, somewhere aft in the reeling hull, a magazine exploded. The cruiser sank as a bull sinks in the ring before the crowning mercy of the last thrust. A pall of smoke closed down upon the outraged sea.

3

In a ground floor room at the back of Portsmouth Hard an old woman was laying the table for supper. Not much of a supper: the remains of a loaf of bread, some dripping in a saucer. But the chief item of the meal, a bloater, lay on a plate in front of the fire, keeping warm.

An old man sat in a chair by the hearth, reading a newspaper through steel-rimmed glasses. Laying it aside, he leaned forward and prodded the bloater speculatively with a nubbly forefinger. He turned and looked at his wife over the top of the steel-rimmed spectacles.

"It's a soft roe, Mother. '_E_ liked 'em wiv soft roe."

The woman had completed the arrangements for their meal, and was tying on her bonnet before the scrap of mirror that hung on the wall.